A Daily Wire film production that appears to restage parts of Renee Good's killing has been cleared to keep shooting in Livingston, Montana, a rural town where residents had objected to the project. Filming of Pawn Shop was briefly suspended earlier this month after locals raised complaints about street closures and about how the movie depicts the Trump administration's immigration enforcement, according to The Guardian. The town then restored the production's permit with fresh restrictions covering noise and scenes of violence.
The movie, which reportedly features Danny Trejo and Harvey Keitel, centers on an ICE agent trying to flee a crowd that wants to free an immigrant he has taken into custody, per its logline.
Why it matters
The dispute puts a small Montana community at the center of a national argument over how the immigration crackdown is portrayed on screen. It also tests how much say a town has over a production that brings money and disruption at the same time. Livingston's decision to let the shoot continue — but with conditions — offers one answer: keep the cameras rolling, and narrow what they are allowed to capture.
Residents take their complaints to the commission
At a Livingston city commission meeting last week, a series of residents stepped up to list their objections to the production's presence. They said they had received little to no public notice. They said road closures were cutting off access to a food pantry. They said the sound of gunfire was disturbing.
Bex Frucht, who lives in the area, told the commission that a production should not be able to take over the downtown with hired performers and stage mob beatings while shutting the entrance to a local non-profit. Frucht described the shoot as simulating a highly controversial murder on the town's streets.
The flashpoint was a video from the set that circulated online. In it, a woman playing a protester drives a battered car into a group of law enforcement officers, knocking one to the ground, while another officer fires his weapon. The car then jerks backward. The Guardian reports that the scene drew backlash and brought out protesters because of its resemblance to the January fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent.
Permit pulled, then reinstated with limits
The outcry led officials to revoke the filming permit for a time. It was later reinstated with new parameters governing noise and any depictions of violence.
Ben Shapiro, a co-founder of The Daily Wire, criticized the city commission for what he called its deference to "radical leftwing protesters." In a video he posted to X on Wednesday, Shapiro said making a film requires a great deal of work: securing the permit, which he said the company had done, and assembling everyone on location, which he said it had also done. He said each day of filming costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that the people who turned out had disrupted the shoot.
Livingston city commissioner Melissa Nootz did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Shapiro's remarks, according to The Guardian.
Town officials had said Pawn Shop was scheduled to finish its Livingston shoot on 10 October. Whether the pause pushed that date back is not clear.
A food bank welcomes the new terms
Kaya Patten-Fusselman, executive director of the Livingston Food Resource Center, said in a statement posted to social media on Wednesday that she backed the conditions now attached to the permit. She framed the issue as one of access, saying that blocking the entrance to the center's one-way parking lot did not work for some of its clients and still does not. Patten-Fusselman said she would keep working with the city so that the next non-profit, business or neighbor learns about a street's multi-week closure well before it begins.
The production has also drawn attention beyond Montana. HipLatina reported that Danny Trejo has faced backlash over his role in the ICE-centered film.
What to watch next: whether Pawn Shop holds to its 10 October wrap date in Livingston, and how the town's new noise and violence limits shape what the production can film in its remaining days.
